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Letter: Letters: No cousin of mine

Published 19 June 1993

From MATTHEW HOSIER

Whatever the biology of it, humans are distinctly different from chimpanzees
– in many ways that herring gulls are not distinct from black-backed gulls.
The two species of bird occupy basically the same niche around the globe and
behave as a single ecological species, if not a taxonomic one. Man and the
apes clearly do not have a similar ecological impact and other differences
between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are profound: we write, we philosophise, we cook,
we make music, and so on.

Matthew Hosier
Hove, East Sussex

Issue no. 1878 published 19 June 1993

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